


a heaven all too resembling of hell.

by toorus



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coping, Sabo needs a hug, sabo doesnt like thinking of these dreams as coping but thats exactly what they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toorus/pseuds/toorus
Summary: sabo doesn't know how to handle his brothers death and so he lives in a state of dreaming that isn't really healthy.





	a heaven all too resembling of hell.

**Author's Note:**

> pls don't read this as romantic/shipping thank u <3

“Here again, huh?”

Sabo didn’t mean for the words to fall so harshly, like he didn’t want to see him again tonight. If anything, it was always a good thing to see Ace in his dreams. These sparse moments in time where he could sit down and talk to the man that died far too young. Sabo had never gotten the chance to talk to Ace face to face as adults. Hell, when Ace was alive, he was under the impression that Sabo had been dead. And god, how Sabo wished he could turn back the clocks, regain his memories long before he actually did, hunt down his brothers and let them know _everything_ ; tell them all the things he couldn’t remember but wanted so desperately to. It was too late now, though, the tables had already turned. Ace was dead and Sabo didn’t have the ability to bring him back.

So, he relished in these dreams, as much as he could at least. Ace had always been a little prick, the guy who’d push all of your buttons with an annoying grin like he knew exactly what he was doing but wouldn’t admit to it. Being beyond the grave didn’t change that at all. Ace was still Ace. He joked in times he shouldn’t and tried to make the worst of situations funny. He was a complete and utter asshole and Sabo was thankful that this Ace was exactly how he was when Sabo had known him. Still a piece of shit that was more loveable than anyone could ever imagine. Well, except for the fact that this Ace had a gaping hole in his chest, right where a beating heart should’ve been. What hurt the most was that the hole wasn’t simply part of his dream. It wasn’t something he added in to make the sadness in the air thicker, no, it was real. A reminder, actually, that he had been too late.

They were on the top of the stone tower again, all gray but glittering under the sun rays beaming down on the tall structure. This was a place they only came to sometimes, when tougher things were up in the wind. Other days they’d be back in the lush, green forest by Dandan’s place, sitting on tree stumps and laughing like they were ten again. The stairs were still behind them, wooden and set up on metal beams that lead down to the clouds below, something like a pathway back to reality. There was no ground for grass to grow on, only white, foggy nothingness.

The brothers sat side by side, their shoulders would’ve been touching if Ace wasn’t a fucking ghost that Sabo could see through, pale yellow sun rays shining through what would be his skin. Ace was sitting still, hands clutching his knees and shoulders stiff. Something about _this_ place threw him off and Sabo wondered what it was about this place that made Ace so visibly uncomfortable but never had the heart to ask. Ace would open up in a bit, anyway, after the conversation would start to flow. He just needed time to get used to this scenery. He always did.

 “You know you can tell me to go away right? It’s not like I’m alive.” Ace’s voice was level, calm even, the words constructed to roll off his tongue with ease as if blankly acknowledging his own death was something easily done.

Sabo chuckled in disbelief at that, tilting his head back to soak in the sun beating down on his face. As if. He wished he could tell Ace to go away, truly. It’d be easier if he did, then Sabo wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night, moon still high and stars winking down at him in mock tranquility while tears rained from his eyes. Yeah. That’d be easier. But even still, part of Sabo didn’t want Ace to go. The blonde enjoyed the fact that even if he screamed his heart out, the vision of his brother in this realm wouldn’t fade away like he had in reality.

“Ghosts don’t go away just because you tell them to,” he said. “They stick around for a while.”

Out of all the ways he expected Ace to respond, it wasn’t with an obnoxious laugh, the kind that’d have you holding onto your knees, chest on the verge of erupting and eyes pushing out tears like a machine. But that was _exactly_ how he reacted. Head thrown back, scarlet beads around his neck bumping against his chest and black hair rustling with the slight wind that came from being up so high.

“Who the hell told you that one?” Ace asked between deep breaths, well whatever he was doing to regain composure. Breathing wasn’t something he could do anymore.

“You’re not philosophical enough for shit like that, Sabo.”

The blonde grumbled unintelligibly, tearing his gaze away from the dreamy sky to shoot a deathly glare at Ace. Maybe he wasn’t philosophical enough to come up with that on his own, but the girl who’d told him that one night _was_. She had her ghosts, dark and demon-like creatures that haunted her every moment just like he did. Koala could understand his pain better than anyone else in his group of friends, and even though she couldn’t be with him in his dreams to rip him away from the transparent body of a dead brother, her words could.

“A friend.”

“I see,” Ace replied, the ends of his mouth tilted up in a smirk and an eyebrow raised, as if the question Sabo’s answer. He’d been too quick and curt with his reply. Ace clearly knew exactly what he meant by _friend_.

But fuck Ace and his teasing bullshit. Sabo didn’t have time for this, to joke around as if Ace was still alive, like they could do this whenever they wanted and not just in the depth of Sabo’s psyche. They were working on a short time span here. Sabo would have to be up in a couple of hours, meaning he didn’t have time to waste around poking at things that Ace himself would never be able to learn about outside of this space.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Sabo snapped, this time deciding to focus his anger onto the whiteness around them. He despised this peaceful scene, hated how the pure and innocent place felt anything but that.

“Then why are we here?”

Ace was looking up at the sun now and Sabo wondered what his last sunrise was like, if he’d even see a final sunrise before he fell. Sabo could recall all the newspaper articles that he’d hunted for after the news of Ace’s death had circulated around the New World. He’d searched through archives and archives until he found _everything_. One piece on Ace being captured and turned in by Blackbeard, essentially leading to Ace being thrown into Impel Down, another on the worry of the uprising from Whitebeard for the imprisonment of his son. Maybe Ace never got to see a final sunrise, but only a sunset, or maybe all he got to see was the fighting, the smoke, and the blood of comrades surround him. Sabo could ask him, if he really wanted to, but somethings he liked to keep buried in the grave.

“I don’t know.”

Sabo genuinely didn’t know. He didn’t know why he couldn’t go a week without seeing his brother in the middle of the night. Sabo’s trembling fingers found the golden ends of his hair and he tugged, pulling until his scalp felt raw, and his eyes squeezed shut. He hated this. He hated not knowing why he was _still_ seeing Ace, why he couldn’t breathe and move on without seeing the ghostly figure in his dreams. Koala had called it coping before, but Sabo thought it bullshit. Whatever these dreams were, were in no way coping, because Sabo still couldn’t handle Ace’s death. He’d tried and tried and tried, but always ended up right back at the start, back here in this haunting dreamland.

Yet even still, Sabo didn’t think it was that much of an issue. Even if it was confusing and poked at his mind most days, he still appreciated this time. It was all he had left, a ghostly image of a man that’d never leave his mind.

“How’s Luffy doing?” Ace asked, dark eyes softening at the mention of their younger brother.

Changing the topic had always been a good tactic of Ace’s. Sabo used to hate it as a kid, when Ace would switch up their conversation to avoid any type of confrontation, but now, he appreciated it. It gave him a chance to release the frustration from his mind along with the strands of hair, falling from his tense fingers.

“You don’t visit him?” Sabo’s eyes opened wide and he contemplated the idea that Ace never visited Luffy in his dreams. They’d always been close from what he could remember. Sure, he and Ace had been friends before Luffy showed up at Dandan’s, but Luffy was something different. He constantly annoyed Ace, never giving him the chance to breathe without being right behind him. It was strange to think that Luffy wouldn’t keep Ace locked in his dreams for as long as he could. 

Ace sighed, the obnoxious and bloodied hole moving up and down along with his huff. Sabo couldn’t stop looking at it every time his brother moved, it remained a prominent reminder that he’d been too late to change the outcome of the War of the Best. He’d fucked up, horribly. And even though it wasn’t his fault, the bloodstained guilt on his hands hadn’t washed away. The pitch-black pool of regret he’d drowned in months ago was still full, waves tugging him deeper and deeper into the muddy depths. He’d be here for a while, that was self-decided.

“I haven’t seen him in two years,” Ace answered forwardly, “I’m pretty sure he’s moved on by now.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sabo wasn’t sure what else he could say. He could remember how fond Ace had really been over Luffy. Hell, he’d risked his life for Luffy’s safety multiple times when they were younger and even though Sabo didn’t know for sure, he was positive that Ace’s fondness had only grown in amount during their teenage and adult years.

“Don’t be,” he replied, shaking his head and waving his hand at Sabo, completely pushing off the apology.

“I’m proud of him,” Ace added, “He’s moved on and keeps pushing forward to his goal and I’m proud of him. But you’re still here, Sabo, stuck in this fantasy you’ve created to keep me alive.”

The harsh look Sabo received from his brother wasn’t one he’d ever seen before, at least from what he could remember, it was full of scary seriousness that seemed to say _it’s your turn next_. Sabo didn’t think he was next, though, not when he didn’t need to change anything. So what if he was trapped in this never-ending dream every night? Was it wrong for him to want to talk to Ace, to make up for the lost time, and get to know more about the brother he’d lost? No, it wasn’t.

There were far too many nights that Sabo spent sobbing, clutching and screaming into a pillow to muffle to sounds of agony that ripped from his chest; too many nights that a gentle voice and soft hands would have to shake him out of nightmares and guide him back to being fine. These weren’t nightmares, these weren’t flashes of terror that Sabo had to be coaxed out of. This was a safe haven, in some sense, and Sabo needed it to survive.

“This helps me,” Sabo said blankly, face kept straight.

“No, it doesn’t,” Ace replied without hesitation. “This kills you.”

Did it though? Sabo wasn’t really sure. Maybe it hurt in the early mornings when he woke up to an empty bedroom with flashes of Ace in the forefront of his mind; the newspaper clippings with him sitting on the execution stand, his wanted poster, his corpse, emptied and running red. Maybe waking up was like dying all in one, Sabo’s breath being cut short in his throat by the sword of harsh reality and the light behind his eyes falling dark and empty. But these things, these minuscule things that Sabo didn’t mind experiencing if it meant he’d get to talk to Ace, were nothing in comparison the to reality he didn’t want to actually face.

Sabo shook his head, “I’m fine.”

“You’re struggling.”

It wasn’t fair that Ace knew Sabo better than he knew himself, especially now of all times when nothing Ace said here could carry out into the world. But perhaps this was something that came with the perks of being dead, like Ace gained the knowledge of a god after sprouting wings.

“You don’t know how I’m doing. You’re not here,” the blonde retorted defensively.

“I’m inside _your_ head, Sabo. I’m always here.”

 _Well shit_. Leave it to Ace to call him out like that, again. Sabo hardly had time to breathe without being torn apart and read like a book by his brother. Luffy never had the mind to do things like that, only ever telling Sabo that it’d get better somehow, and Koala wouldn’t tread over that line, yet, she was still careful around him when it came to this, treading on a tightrope in circles around Sabo’s mental state. But Ace, Ace was different. He was the only one in the world with the power to call Sabo out on his emotional bullshit, like the way he’d shut himself off and live in stone cold denial, refusing to move or shift away from the idea of that grave on the cliff being permanent, hat sitting on top of it never to be worn again. Whether that denial be about his own feelings on the situation or the truth that he could only run so far from, Sabo wasn’t too sure.

Nonetheless, he was fine. Sabo was managing this in the only way he knew how, by being here. The dreams helped, seeing Ace helped. It still wasn’t a coping mechanism, at least not to Sabo, too stubborn to acknowledge that he needed a way to cope, but it was something to push him through the day without breaking down in tears. 

“And so what if I am struggling?” Sabo exclaimed, pushing up off the ground to stare down at Ace, standing up always gave him strength. “Everybody struggles, it’s natural.”

“Nothing about this is natural.” Ace laughed.

“You’re stuck in a fucking dream, Sabo. A dream that needs to come to an end.”

Even though it was Ace’s mouth moving, the voice wasn’t that of his brother’s. Sabo fell to the ground, back to his spot beside Ace, at the strange and ominous voices pouring into his head. He could hear himself in there. Sabo could hear himself and Luffy and Dandan and Dragon and Koala and _everyone_ ; like a chorus coming together, singing in unison, harmonizing along the lines of a hymn composed with tough, unbearable facts.

“It’s time to wake up.”

The chorus hadn’t gone away, and this time Sabo could see them, glimpses up in the clouds of the people he still had back down on earth. Dragon, face stern but caring, empathizing deep in his heart with the life that Sabo had lost. Koala, too, her sapphire eyes glazed over with worry and affection, smile so gentle and welcoming. And then there was Luffy, his grin shining through the sun, peeking through the cloud. A hand stretched out through the clouds and it was clear who it belonged to. His little brother, who’d already stepped off the path of guilt and regret and walked down a new road of growth and revival, reaching out for him, trying to pull him back home.

Was it time to move on?

With tears pricking the edges of his eyes, Sabo shook his head. No, he wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to let Ace go, not when he never really got the chance to grow up with him. This was where they could grow up. Here, in the back of his subconscious where there were no Marine Admirals with magma fists or villainous pirates with a death wise. Here, they were safe. They could be brothers and friends, and they could laugh for hours on end and they could reminisce on the past and they could talk about Luffy. They could be _alive_ here, at least as much as they could be. With Ace six feet under and Sabo’s soul so drained, it was debatable how alive they could really be.

“I can’t go,” he cried, looking over to Ace who seemed to be fading. “I’m not ready to let go of this yet.”

Ace forced a smile and reached out for his hand, but the apparition palm fell right through Sabo’s body, only making him cry harder.

“You’ve got to go now,” he said, hints of the chorus present but Ace mainly shining through now. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

Sabo opened his mouth to detest the idea again, to tell Ace that he refused to go and that he was going to stay right here until the morning, but the hand reaching out from the sky was getting too close now, close enough to touch him.

“Don’t think I’ll be gone forever, Sabo.”

 _Ha._ _But you’re already gone, aren’t you, Ace?_

“Like I said, I’m in your head. You can’t get rid of me completely, but you need to shove _this_ idea of me away.”

“No.” Oh, Sabo could still speak. His voice was broken, cracked and dry like he’d been yelling for hours even though he hadn’t screamed aloud once.

“You have too much left down there to spend so much time with me up here.” Ace pointed to the sky above, the portraits of people Sabo still had to hold onto. And it wasn’t like the blonde didn’t know that. He was well aware of every single connection he still had outside of here, but they weren’t his brother, his first friend, the first person to ever accept him for him.

“No,” Sabo repeated after a cough, attempting to make his voice clearer, more definite. Maybe if he kept saying no this wouldn’t come to an end.

But then Ace tilted his head to the side, grin not going away, and Sabo knew then, that this wasn’t a joke or a game that the ghost was playing.

“We won’t meet here again.”

 _No_. They had to meet again. Sabo didn’t know what he’d do if they _didn’t_ see each other again. He didn’t know how he’d wake up in the morning, he didn’t know how he’d stumble through the day in hopes that somebody was there to pick up his shattered pieces.

But even if this was serious, if Ace wasn’t going to give him any more opportunities to talk, then Sabo had to at least get one thing out.

“Ace, I–“

“It’s too late for regrets now, Sabo.” How the fuck did this ghost always know what he wanted to say.

“You and I both know that. Now go. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move the fuck on. I’m not coming here again.”

It only took a couple of seconds before it had Sabo by his collar, lifting him up to his feet and forcing him away from Ace, who suddenly wasn’t the same Ace he’d just been talking to. This Ace was lying on the ground, eyes closed and body pouring red, the thick blood seeping through the cracks of stone and dribbling down the tower like vomit, vomit Sabo could feel riling up in his stomach. And that smile, the stupid fucking smile of peace that Sabo despised, as if the asshole had been _happy_ to die.

Sabo threw a hand out, straining out for the corpse and with tears still streaming down his cheeks, chest heaving with rocky sobs. He had to come back, he wanted to come back. This couldn’t be the last conversation he had with his brother, it just couldn’t. There were still so many things Ace didn’t know, so many things that Sabo didn’t get the chance to tell him, like about his life in the Revolutionary Army and all the places he’d been to and explore, all of the missions that Ace should’ve been on with him. The blonde was filled with a different regret now, the kind that was a punch in the back of his heart telling him that he should’ve said so much more when he had the chance. He didn’t know why he hadn’t talked to Ace about his new life beforehand, maybe Sabo stupidly assumed that there’d always be a next time. But that wasn’t true anymore, Ace had said so himself.

This had been the last time they’d see each other, the last time Sabo would be able to actually talk to his dead brother, and he’d wasted it on _nothing_. Absolutely fucking nothing. Another chance that he was letting slip through his fingers, one that he’d never get to grab again. They didn’t even say goodbye, not really. But then again, did they ever get the chance to before? This was supposed to be that chance, that point in time where Sabo got to say goodbye. But the moment was already fading, and he couldn’t even let the word fall from his mouth.

The tower was crumbling now, as he was being dragged into the clouds by the enlarged hand of his younger brother, Ace’s body crumbling with it. Stone and flesh alike, breaking down into pieces and falling down into the white nothingness. Sabo watched as it all fell down, listening to the rumbling of the rocks and the snapping off the wooden steps. For the sun to still be shining, casting a heavenly-like glow on the space, the scene felt too much like hell. With the body of his brother shattering easier than glass, there was no fucking way the sun could shine so pleasantly. His other dreams had ended somewhat peacefully, with Ace saying goodbye and walking down the steps with a simple wave, but this… this was a true end, a complete collapse of the one thing Sabo had to hold onto. There wouldn’t be another dream like this. He’d never see Ace here again.

And then, all too suddenly, he was awake.


End file.
